Gospel of John, chapters 18-19

The Gospel reading for Good Friday comes from John's account, chapters 18 and 19. This is not the end of the Story, though it may look like it. But we sit with it today, and bring to it all of our own sorrow and sinfulness, the complacency and intentional hurt we bear and cause. We pray a bidding prayer. We venerate the cross ("behold the life-giving cross, on which was hung the savior of the world, o come, let us worship") and hear the solemn reproaches. We watch, and we wait, and we hold this space. Holy God, holy and mighty, holy and immortal, have mercy on us.